(At this point I chance to see from my window a kitten in the act of annoying a rather large snake. It is a coiled-up snake; probably an Itongo. It requires a good five minutes to induce the kitten to abandon its quarry and to convey the snake to a safe place under the myrtles. This being done, I resume my pen.) I have remarked that in some respects the Saint of Assisi stands apart from the other saints who took notice of animals. It was a common thing, for instance, for saints to preach to creatures, but there is an individual note in the sermon of Francis to the birds which is not found elsewhere. The reason why St. Anthony preached to the fishes at Rimini was that the “heretics” would not listen to him, and St. Martin addressed the water-fowl who were diving after fish in the Loire because, having compared them to the devil, seeking whom he may devour, he thought it necessary to order them to depart from those waters—which they immediately did, no doubt frightened to death by the apparition of a gesticulating saint and the wild-looking multitude. The motive of Francis was neither pique at not being listened to nor the temptation to show miraculous skill as a bird-scarer; he was moved solely by an effusion of tender sentiment. Birds in great quantities had alighted in a neighbouring field: a beautiful sight which every dweller in the country must have sometimes seen and asked himself, was it a parliament, a garden party, a halt in a journey? “Wait a little for me here upon the road,” said the saint to his companions; “I am going to preach to my sisters the birds.” And so, “_having greeted them as creatures endowed with reason_,” he went on to say: “Birds, my sisters, you ought to give great praise to your Creator, who dressed you with feathers, who gave you wings to fly with, who granted you all the domains of the air, whose solicitude watches over you.” The birds stretched out their necks, fluttered their wings, opened their beaks, and looked at the preacher with attention. When he had done, he passed in the midst of them and touched them with his habit, and not one of them stirred till he gave them leave to fly away.